News & Insights

Team Leader and Director of Planning Matt Bucchin (Austin) was named the division chair of the American Planning Association’s (APA) Sustainable Communities Division (SCD) on Jan. 1. He will be the division chair until Dec. 31, 2020.

As division chair, Matt will be working with leadership from APA’s Divisions Council and volunteers of the SCD to engage the division’s membership and other members of APA. The SCD currently has more than 2,100 active members and almost 6,000 LinkedIn subscribers. These subscribers are planners and other professionals from allied organizations who are interested in sustainable communities.

The SCD is one of 21 divisions representing various special interests for the APA’s 37,000 members.

The SCD provides many services to its members, including a biannual newsletter, biweekly e-bulletins, educational webinars and an annual awards banquet and reception at the National Planning Conference. Through division initiatives such as SCD’s Sustainability Champions Program, division members and volunteers contribute hundreds of hours to help division- and other related APA initiatives move forward.

Matt has been an active volunteer with the SCD since its inception. His division involvement over the past several years has included:

APA-SCD’s Night of Resilience at NYU and a facilitated discussion (2017 NPC in New York)

APA-SCD’s Evening with Sustainability & Resiliency Leaders in Planning Practice, Policy and Research at ASU (2016 NPC in Phoenix)

APA-SCD’s by-right session at the Atlanta and Seattle National Planning Conferences (2014 and 2015)

APA’s Smart Cities & Sustainability Initiative (2014 to present)

The special event he set up and emceed in Phoenix won APA’s Division Council award for Best Practice in 2017.

Halff has been a sponsor of the Sustainable Communities Division for the past two years.